Sydney museums go free for kids

From 27 June admission to two of Sydney leading museums will be free for all children under 16 years.

For the MAAS and the Australian Museum that’s a significant change from the current $8 per child. The $2.1 million budget announcement reverses 25 years of ticketed entry for children and comes just in time for the winter school holidays. Australian Museum director Kim McKay said,

Museums are places of wonder, of learning and discovery … we want to make sure that they (kids) can come here anytime they’d like.

Both museums will hold a free open-day weekend on June 28 and 28 to celebrate the policy.

On the one hand this is great news if you are a family who were not visiting the museums because of the price. On the other hand, this sort of move only works when it is backed by a sustained government funding commitment. Museums need money to function and are generally an easy target in cut-backs. It would be nice to think that this move was part of a government initiative to not only allow more people access to the State’s two major museums, but to reinvigorate what they offer.

It’s not yet clear what, if anything, these pricing changes will mean for museum memberships.